He was a massive man. In both personality and stature. A real force to be reckoned with. A room quietened when he entered. His presence was always felt. He was difficult, driven, and dark. He had a phrase, a catchphrase if you will, “I don’t have to do nothing except drop dead”, which he would pepper into conversation with a morbid frequency and nonchalance. My father experienced the worst of his negative traits. I think my father’s severe depressive swings stem from their relationship.

He did not fight in the war, because he was very young at the time, but was very damaged by it as he lost his father to battle. His mother, from what little my father has told me (who knew little himself), was unable to cope and could not raise him alone. As a result, he was shuttled between homes, spending lots of time with his aunt. He married his childhood sweetheart who went by a nickname, Trig. Then, many years later, maybe as many as 15, maybe even more, they had a daughter, Cheryl (my aunt).

He worked at first as a sales representative for a local photographic film company, but quickly stepped out on his own to start his own business. The particulars of it are hazy because it was before I was born, and because of the bad things that happened, and the damage done, my father didn’t want to talk about it. He was, though, very quickly, very successful, and after a while he was operating multiple locations. You would have thought that he would have taken advantage of his fortune and wealth, but he wasn’t a man of luxury or frivolous spending, preferring to save and live frugally. Which made what happened even more ironic. However, one indulgence, which was more of an investment, and he must have been very thankful he made it, was the secret beach house where the camp was setup. Without that house none of what happened would have been possible.

Well, it really is quite terrible, and it stook the family, and really the entire community, to its core. After several years of expansion and growth in his business, and I think I have said, my grandfather invested heavily in his business and little else, he suffered a terrible setback. More than a setback, a crime, really. To this day I haven’t been able to understand why anyone was prosecuted. I can only imagine that there were some connections. Some strings pulled, to protect the perpetrators from punishment. In short, my grandfather fell victim to embezzlement and lost his fortune and his business. Money was poorly invested or siphoned off. It doesn’t matter which, because he suffered the same fate regardless. He was never the same after that happened. Although with hindsight, this was only the beginning. Because of, or at least contributing to, the financial hardship and difficulties that they experienced, my grandmother fell ill and went into a steep decline. Trig’s health was stripped from her in a few short months. All vitality and life taken from a person that was often, in contrast to my grandfather, joyous and upbeat. It still upsets me to remember how she looked in these days. A painful memory. The only grace was that she passed quickly and did not suffer too long. This, added to my grandfather’s almost financial ruin, caused him to withdraw further and darken even further. We went from being wary of him to fearing him. I started to see him less and less. He didn’t want to see anyone. Strangely, although he was something of a scary presence in my life, I still missed him. But I missed his daughter, rather my aunt, even more. I still miss her terribly.

I was young, and a lot was kept from me, so I can’t talk about it in detail, but she died. It was accident. She fell. She fell and died. The details are vague and mysterious. You might say suspicious but there is so much suspicion in everything he did it’s easy to draw shocking conclusions. My father wasn’t particularly close to his sister as there was a big age gap, but it still hit him very hard and he rarely, if ever, broached the subject. The one thing is for certain, Cheryl’s death destroyed my grandfather. Completely ruined him. There was nothing left.

Author’s note: I pressed Reuben’s suspicions, but he became hostile. As a result, maybe due to my probing, or maybe due to exploring his past with me, Rueben became increasingly vague and slow with his responses. When I pressed for further details on his grandfather and some context on the documents and photographs he had sent me, he was reluctant to share any information. After almost giving up on him and the project our communications resumed and with it an enthusiasm for the project that intense in its focus and urgency. His commitment came more from sharing the archive with me than answering questions on his grandfather, but I did gleam some more details on the reunion and how the camp came to be revealed (which I cover in more detail in the forward to the book).

After all the tragic events that befell my grandfather, he disappeared from our lives. He buried his daughter and then almost overnight sold everything and left. No one knew where he went. Despite some investigation from my father (although in truth he barely tried, and was secretly relieved), I never knew what happened to him, or really thought about him. My grandfather, and those terrible events, got pushed to the back of my mind. It was only with the unexpected death of my own mother and father in automobile accident did I start to think about what happened. I felt bereft and lacking a connection. Without family of my own I had nothing to look forward to, and the only place for solace felt like the past. I thought often of him, which almost makes me feel like I manifested him, as it was during that time that the most unexpected thing happened. A man contacted me. He informed me he was a friend and collaborator of my grandfather. My grandfather was alive, but in ill health. I was his sole living heir, and he wanted to see me and wanted to see me with urgency. He had a dying wish and wanted me to grant it.

A little context first. My grandfather had been living at the beach house he bought early during his business success. We never knew of this property as it seems he had kept it from everyone. He was living initially from the sale of his house and possessions, but then through contributions from the followers and the community he built. Based state of the house he lived a meagre existence. That part of him hadn’t changed! I was summoned to this house. I hadn’t seen him for many decades. Many. I was shocked at his appearance, but that was nothing compared to the shock of what he had been doing over the many years since I last saw him. He was unrecognizable. Sick and stricken, but he also he sounded very different. Like he had evolved into someone, or rather, something different. However, despite the changes physically, and the timbre of his voice, it felt like my grandfather. The presence. That terrible foreboding presence. That remained. And he knew things. Things about me. About our family. Only he could know them. It was him, but different.

Yes. My grandfather called for me because he was in terminal decline. He knew this, he told me, because he knew death well. There were no doctors or diagnosis. He has determined he was going to die, and he wanted to spend his dying days with me. He had something to tell me, he said, but I had to be patient. He would know when it was time to tell me. And until that time, we sat mostly alone in his beach house, staring into space together. Then after a number of days he looked into my eyes and said, ‘it’s time’. He handed me a key and told me to go upstairs, where, behind locked door I would find a stack of boxes, (which I later discovered contained clothes, props, and a notebook). Behind these boxes I would find a ball, a smaller box, and a mask. I was told not to open the box. My task was to bring the items to him and await further instructions. The first thing he said to me when I returned, so firmly I froze, was “hand me the ball”. I handed it to him and then my life was never the same.